


speak clearly (i love you dearly)

by lavenderlotion



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutant Husbands, Telepathy, assumed infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22824274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderlotion/pseuds/lavenderlotion
Summary: Erik had fathered a child.They were married and Erik had fathered a child.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 24
Kudos: 155





	speak clearly (i love you dearly)

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a fluffy fic for the [Nothing Is So Beautiful As Spring Challenge 2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/NothingIsSoBeautifulAsSpring2020) but... it wasn't fluffy?????

Charles was pulled from sleep by both the erratic, stress-laden thoughts bleeding through the bond he shared with Erik, and a quiet murmuring coming from the other side of the bed. Making a small noise, Charles shuffled around the bed before lazily turning his head to the side and opening one bleary eye. Through sleep-blurred vision, he could make out the span of Erik's shoulders and the freckled skin stretching down his back. He had a phone pressed against his ear, it's cord stretched to its limits from where it usually sat on the desk in the sitting area of their bedroom.

It didn't explain the hurried, anxious thoughts that were bleeding into Charles' mind, though. Charles was far too close to sleep to properly sort through Erik's thoughts, so he sent a hazy sense of soothing warmth along their bond, filling the darkest corners of Erik's mind with his presence in the same way he would if his husband was having a nightmare. Instead of calming him down, Charles watched as tension climbed along Erik's back and he snapped something into the phone before hanging up.

The phone levitated back to the receiver, but Erik didn't move from the edge of the bed. Charles ran a hand over his face in a bid to wake himself up, having the feeling that Erik needed him by the way he was slumped forward and had his head hanging down between his shoulders. Pushing himself onto his elbows, Charles used his core muscle to push himself into a position that was more upright. He fluffed up a pillow behind his back to make it easier, and then reached out to gently lay his hand on Erik's back.

“Darling?” he asked quietly, keeping his voice as soothing as he could make it while it was still rough with sleep and scratching from his throat.

Erik shook his head, a motion Charles was barely able to see with how far forward he had crumbled. He moved over on the bed in small increments until his side was pressed against Erik's cool skin—he must have been up for a while to have lost so much warmth from bed—wrapping an arm around his side in a half hug. Erik shifted to wrap his arms around Charles' forearm and bow his head even lower, pressing his sweaty forehead against the back of Charles' hand.

He rubbed Erik's far shoulder, resting his forehead against the one nearer him. Worry was slowly rising up his chest and wrapping around his heart, making his chest feel tight. He wasn't going to push, knowing it would do no good. Erik would open up when he needed to and until then Charles would hold him and press warmth against the link between their minds until Erik was feeling okay enough to tell him what had happened.

“I have a daughter,” Erik whispered. The night stilled around them, everything falling into a quiet hush that felt deafening. His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he tried to make sense of Erik's words but even as they rung over and over through his mind they said the same thing.

Charles didn't know what to say. He felt like his tongue was too heavy inside his mouth, weighing more and more until he couldn't even imagine being able to speak. He pushed himself back until they were no longer touching and found that he was unable to stop himself from falling into Erik's thoughts,  _ needing _ to know and unable to stop himself from slipping into his mind and reliving the phone conversation through his memory.

Erik had heard the ringing immediately, as he’d been in a light sleep after an unpleasant dream had woken him. The phone was rising off the receiver before the first ring tone was up and landing in his hand. He'd answered the call roughly, ready to tell off whoever thought it was acceptable to call them in the middle of the night even as his heart began beating quicker as his mind raced through all the things that could have gone wrong. When an older woman started speaking, crying into the phone about her daughter being killed and leaving behind a granddaughter she couldn’t care for, Erik had sat up and listened intently.

He'd calmed her down enough that he was able to understand what she was saying, and then did his best to get to the bottom of what was wrong. The words had felt hollow to Erik, echoing horribly over the phone line and making his chest ache. When she'd called him Max Eisenhardt, his entire world felt like it shattered down around him only for her to mention a baby with green hair that she wouldn’t care for, a baby that Erik was the father of. He tried not to believe her, harshly refusing what he knew had to be the truth no matter how much he didn’t want it to be. He could only hold up his resolve until she started listing information no one else could possibly know. 

It couldn't be a lie, it had to be true, it had to be his. 

Shivering, Charles roughly pulled himself back from Erik's memories to focus on the horrifying reality of the present. He realized that his eyes were burning, and when he blinked they felt suspiciously wet. Erik's own sorrow was still echoing through his mind and he thinned their connection until Erik's thoughts were barely a whisper at the very edge of his awareness. He ignored the whimper the other man let out, knowing the lack of connection would be felt by both of them but unwilling to open it back up with the way it felt like he couldn't even breathe.

“I’m sorry,” Erik told him at the end of a gasping breath, sounding exhausted and worn out and terribly guilty. 

“Erik—” Charles' voice broke into nothing. He bit into his bottom lip hard enough for the sting of pain to clear some of his racing thoughts, but they still said the same thing, over and over. 

Erik had fathered a child.  _ They were married and Erik had fathered a child.  _

_ “ _ I am so sorry,” Erik told him, voice hoarse and eyes shining when he finally shifted on the bed and looked at him. There was darkness surrounding his eyes and his cheeks looked sunken in. He certainly hadn't looked like that when they'd been falling asleep hours earlier, pressing playful kisses against Charles' lips as they two of them slowly drifted off.

Charles didn't need to look into his mind to know his sorrow was sincere. He didn't know if that was enough.

With a deep breath, Charles tried for a smile but knew by the way Erik's eyes spilled over that it didn't look nearly genuine enough to be believable. He still reached out, and Erik immediately thrust his hand forward, linking their fingers together and hanging on so tightly it ached. Charles didn't say anything, couldn’t say anything for the way it felt like his heart was being torn out of his chest and ripped to shreds that were so tiny and plentiful he would never recover. 

“I’m still so sorry, Charles you have to believe me. It was  _ years ago—” _

“What?” Charles snapped, sagging in the bed as he thoughtlessly pushed through Erik’s mind and sorted through his memories without a single ounce of finesse until he found what he needed. 

_ Heavens, it’s been nearly four years.  _ The truth settled into his chest and the tension that had been weighing him down and making it impossible to do so much as even  _ think _ cleared away one shallow breath at a time until he could once again see through his cloud of tears, only for his vision to blur when guilt pushed more out of his eyes. 

“My goodness, Erik, I’m so sorry,” Charles whispered shakily, opening his mind back up and allowing him in, pushing forward the horrible things he’d thought about the man he loved. 

“I would  _ never—” _ Erik’s words were laced with so much disgusted venom that they tore into Charles’ chest and weighed him down with guilt. 

_ I know you wouldn’t, _ Charles pressed into his mind, unable to say the words aloud because they were already kissing, mouths moving together almost desperately. Erik was gripping him just as tightly as Charles was gripping him back and their kiss tasted of salt and regret and a thousand other things they were both feeling. 

After a long moment in which their lips moved together and Charles kept down a fit of hysterical tears by pouring his grief into Erik’s mouth, they rested their foreheads together and breathed each other in. 

“I promise, I know you would never be unfaithful. I’m so, so sorry my mind even  _ went _ there,” Charles’ words were whispered quietly between them and filled with the pain he felt at himself for thinking something so horrible of such an extraordinary man. For all of their shortcomings, how deeply they cared for each other had never been one. 

“I’m sorry this has even happened. I never should have done something like that,” Erik told him just as seriously, leaning forward and capturing another kiss. 

Charles’ reply was falling from his lips the moment they were free. “You don't need to apologize for a decision you made when we weren't together.”

“But I do, because I loved you. I’ve  _ always _ loved you,” Erik told him fiercely. Charles knew the words were true for how strongly they rang through his mind but also for the way Charles wore his ring and had committed himself to spend the rest of his life with Erik. He never would have done either of those things if he hadn’t been as absolutely certain that Erik would love him for the rest of their lives as he was that he would love Erik for just as long. 

They spent a few more, quiet minutes together. Charles let their minds meld so they could work through what they were still feeling without needing words. He knew that Erik liked it when they were like this, liked the closeness, the all-encompassing feeling of Charles being there, and wondered again how he could have ever felt something so vile. It didn’t matter, though, because Erik was in his thoughts as much as he was in Erik’s and he was soothing that thought away before it could hurt them again. 

Now that Charles was thinking clearly and wasn’t only reacting to Erik’s blinding panic and a conversation he had no reference for, it was easy to see what had really happened. During the few years after assisting the Logan fellow from the future, they hadn’t been together. Rightfully so, as Erik had been the last person Charles would have wanted to see back then even if he wanted Erik with every bit of his heart. 

While Charles had been starting back up his school, Erik had been travelling the world and helping mutants that needed him. He’d come across a small village and had stayed for a while. There he had met a woman who was both strong-willed and stubborn, gorgeously so. Both were attributes that reminded him of Charles, and they had fallen into bed only a few times before Erik had moved on. 

It hadn’t been  _ anything _ like Charles’ horrified thoughts had expected. When the woman on the phone had called Erik by another name and accused him of fathering a  _ baby, _ Charles’ mind had jumped to the absolute worst case possible, spurred on by the panic Erik was feeling at the revelation that he’d fathered a child. Now, they were able to work through how they were feeling seamlessly, trading the occasional kiss as they sat together on the bed, Erik’s leg awkwardly thrown over Charles’ lap so they could press as closely together as possible. 

“We have a daughter,” Charles finally whispered into the silent air between them, and then any last lingering bit of sadness slipped away as excitement climbed up his belly and stretched his lips into a small and made it impossible to feel anything else. “Erik, we have a daughter!”

Erik laughed, the noise echoing joyously through the room as more tears spilled down his face, but this time the cause was the overwhelming happiness that was projecting between them and getting stronger and stronger as it fed from one to the other. It grew until it was all either of them could feel, all they wanted to feel, and as they started whispering plans into the silent night, they were each smiling widely. 

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://lavender-lotion.tumblr.com/)!  
> comments and kudos are much appreciated!


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